In an article published on February 17, the English-language news website VietNamNet Bridge said Vietnam now dreams of getting “big fish” when attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and hopes to lure the top 500 global conglomerates.

According to the news website, Samsung is a big foreign investor Vietnam wants to attract and which has expressed its willingness to make investments in many different business fields in Vietnam.

Samsung has been the name mentioned in all discussions about FDI in Vietnam since the day it set up the world’s biggest mobile phone factory in Vietnam’s Thai Nguyen province, which provides 60 percent of Samsung brand mobile phones to the global market.

Vietnam’s efforts to attract FDI over the last 25 years have not been highly appreciated by experts, who pointed out that most of the foreign investors coming to Vietnam so far develop small and medium projects, said the website, adding that about 50 percent of foreign investors now are from the countries with the same development level like Vietnam (the proportion was 35 percent in the past).

After Vietnam successfully persuaded Intel to set up its factory here, it had to wait a long time before welcoming the other big investor – Samsung.

The high technology projects the Republic of Korea’s group develops in Vietnam has raised a high hope that Vietnam can attract more big foreign investors in the future.

The investments by Samsung have been warmly welcomed in Vietnam. The Government has many times shown its goodwill to the Republic of Korea’s investor - when offering the highest possible investment incentives for the two its operational projects capitalised at 4.5 billion USD in total.

The Government Office has released a document, informing Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai’s opinion about the plan on cooperating with Samsung Group in different business fields.

The Ministry of Transport has been requested to consider the possibility of allowing Samsung to join the project on developing the Long Thanh International Airport in Dong Nai province, which would help ease the overload of Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

Once the airport becomes operational, it would serve some 100 million passengers every year. The huge project needs an investment capital of 6 billion USD in the first phase of development.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has been told to introduce some national key projects to Samsung to call for its investments.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) will have working sessions with Samsung about the Vung Ang 3 thermo-power project, and the shipbuilder SBIC on the investment cooperation or the shipbuilding industry restructure.

Prior to that, in an MoU signed between the MPI and Samsung C&T, a subsidiary of Samsung, the Republic of Korea’s investor committed to join the projects in airport, shipbuilding and telecommunication development.

The Deputy Prime Minister has also requested the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), a powerful company specialising in making investments with the State’s money, to work out with Samsung about the possible investment cooperation plans.-VNA